My apologies, folks, for being absent this past week! I’ve been working hard to finish up my master’s thesis proposal (completed yesterday afternoon) and the Christmas and New Year’s season has also gotten in the way. I’ve got a few posts lined up starting on Monday, and plenty of knitting to show you guys! I’ve started back on Colchique and I’m blocking my swatch for the Somewhat Cowl. I’ve stalled on Orangina due to yarn run-out, but it’ll be back and soon finished once more yarn comes in! And now for your regularly-schedule pattern programming.

If you are knitting or have already knit a pattern that I’m talking about, leave me a comment and I’ll update my post with a link to your version. If you’ve written up a pattern and you want me to link to it, send me an email or leave me a comment and I’ll post it! It makes the list longer and my job easier.

The beginning of one sleeve, the hand of another sleeve, plus a thumb tucked in there as well. Lots of stuff going on on those needles! Since last night I’ve knitted on the second thumb and I’m past the wrist for both sleeves. I’m knitting them together so I don’t have to reverse engineer the first sleeve to figure out how to knit the second one. I’ve also got a better chance of having similar tension that way.

The picture is overly photoshopped because the light was abysmal and I wanted to see if I could rescue it with gaussian blurs and messing with curves. I think it turned out pretty slick.

I titled my blog entry “Colchique’s Body” because I’m hoping to get lots of hits from people looking for French porn. For serious, that’s the gosh’s honest truth. “Colchique” could be a chick’s name, right? She sounds mega hot.

Anyhoo, check it out, I’ve got two sleeves left to knit. And then seaming! And then wearing.

I felt bad that I haven’t been taking many pictures for you guys to see what I’m doing, so I went crazy with my camera today. Colchique was tossed around every which way. I’m surprised she still trusts me to carry her around. (Yeah, this sweater is a girl. You wanna fight about it?)

I felt a bit weird knitting in a lecture, seminar series and committee meeting yesterday, so I’m glad that Sarah-Hope recently put up a great post on The Fine Art of Knitting in Meetings.

The best advice here is #1:

Speak up early and intelligently. The best way to keep people from resenting your knitting or viewing it as a distraction is to make it clear from the get-go that you are fully engaged with the non-knitting activity at hand. When I bring my knitting to a meeting, I carefully look for an opportunity to contribute a worthwhile idea or comment early on. Help those around you realize that knitting does not limit your ability to participate.

My addition: A big thing I always do is make eye contact with the presenter/prof/other folks at occasional moments while I’m knitting, even just for a few stitches, which lays it down for them that I’m actually paying attention and that the knitting is automatic. If they think I can knit with my eyes closed, they’ll believe that I can knit and participate in a meeting at the same time.

What tricks do you use?

Once I start my mom’s Somewhat Cowl, it will become the ideal meeting sweater. Not only will it be tiny because it’s for my mom, but it will also be plain stockinette so I would barely have to look down at all. Ribbing doesn’t distract me at all but sometimes cables do, which is where I am right now with my Colchique.

Oh yeah, by the way, I started Colchique! I’m past the waist, a few cm from the boobs. I’m knitting it in the round so that I don’t have to seam! And it’s looking mighty good.

How fitting that the first time I forgot about Saturday, Pattern Day would be lucky number 13. (EDIT, later: and then of course I realize later that this is actually #12.) This past week has been full of craziness, but now that I’m settled into my new place and have all my classes chosen and my office dealt with (I have an office!) I’ll have a little time to spend on knitting and blogging about knitting. I have quite a bit finished on my sweater and I can post those photos on Monday. I’m also working on a swatch for Colchique! Now down to business.

If you are knitting or have already knit a pattern that I’m talking about, leave me a comment and I’ll update my post with a link to your version. If you’ve written up a pattern and you want me to link to it, send me an email or leave me a comment and I’ll post it! It makes the list longer and my job easier.

First, I want to talk about the new Knitty that’s come out; it’s the most promising issue I’ve seen in a long time! I love nearly everything. The phrase Wood-ins reminds me of the whole “hop-ons” problem in arrested development. (If your car is also a house, you’re gonna get some live-ins.)

I wouldn’t knit it, but I think Q has an ingenious construction and quite cleverly deals with calf increases.

I want to link to Flower Power because the photo of the kid modelling it is thigh-slappingly hilarious. He just looks so grumpy and adorable! The hat is really nice, too.

Patch Pocket is a guy’s sweater, and I can’t make up my mind about it. It looks a little hipster-y, but it also looks a little my-gramma-knit-this-for-me-y. Which are both not too great as concepts. But I still like it for some reason. Maybe because the model looks like Peter Petrelli from Heroes.

Henry is a scarf I would picture Sherlock Holmes wearing. I love it for a girl or a boy. It’s just so classy and perfect, I love it.

I like the Percy bag, and I like that there’s some internal structure to give it shape. I’m not sure if I could stand all that finishing, though.

Roam looks like a perfect studying hoodie (or bunny-hug, if you’re Albertan). I love nice warm sweaters with hoods for when I’m reading in my room with my legs under the blankets, because then I’m entirely swaddled in warmth. I really want to knit this.

Urchin is a lovely beret pattern, even if I am getting tired of berets. An example is already here.

Cherie Amour is gorgeous, and it looks nice and quick with bulky yarn. I’m thinking about knitting this one, too. How warm do you think it’d be? Given that it’s lace, I’d do this in cotton and use it as a cover up in the spring.

Blossom is a MagKnits shawl that looks Japanese inspired. There’s a version being begun here. This pattern’s name is a bit annoying because there’s a baby sweater from MagKnits that’s also called Blossom, so searching “magknits blossom” gives me all sorts of unnecessary links.

If you are knitting or have already knit a pattern that I’m talking about, leave me a comment and I’ll update my post with a link to your version. If you’ve written up a pattern and you want me to link to it, send me an email or leave me a comment and I’ll post it! It makes the list longer and my job easier.

I go crazy for anything damask, so this handbag is right up my alley. Damask is the name, HOTTT with three Ts is the game.

I love this name. The Manitou Passage Scarf. It reminds me of the “Huron” Christmas carol we were taught when we were kids. I don’t know about you, but my parents were pseudo-hippies and they sent me to summer camps where we learned to play inuit music, and from the few native celebrations I’ve seen on the tee-vee I can tell y’all it ain’t no Huron carol. Oh here we go; ya, written by a Jesuit in the hopes of befriending the Hurons. Looks like he was martyred by the Iroquois shortly after the Huron nation was wiped out by smallpox. Well, that was a cheerful story.

For those of you who like to shop in the greenest way possible, Elisa’s Nest Tote is an alternative to plastic shopping bags. PDF here, example here.

Here’s a quick mini-pattern for a guy called Mr. Peen. As a hint to what he is, let me just warn you that this might not be SFW.

Pondemonium is a baby sweater WITH LILLY PADS FOR ELBOW PADS and it is SO CUTE and you should KNIT IT if you have a BABY.

Who’da thunk it?! There’s a favourite pattern of mine in one of Phildar’s French-only magazines called “Colchique” (or at least that’s what the internet is calling it). I didn’t bother buying the magazine because I’m not familiar yet with French patterns, but now I don’t have to! The French version is being offered for free at the Colchique-Along (PDF here), and it’s accompanied by a rough English translation.

I’m not the hugest fan of the clothing patterns that Lion Brand puts out, but I like the look of these two crocheted tops designed for Cotton Ease. They’re getting better at styling over there, I guess. Here’s the Light ‘n Lively Tank and Cotton-Ease Tunic. They’ve also got some nice footlets.

Strangling Vine is a free pattern with a twist. You have to do a good deed first before she’ll email you the pattern. I love it!